i1Profiler miniature + small RGB printer targets: 10x15 cm, 13x18 cm, A5

[pharmacist]

reading a row:

As you can see it works perfectly

reading a few rows:

 

[crenedecotret]

Thanks!! Below is the message that got me confused in i1profiler and then looking for other solutions. From your demo, it seems to only be a warning but I didn't want to take any chances. I printed out your target yesterday evening and will scan it in tonight. fingers are crossed I also messed around with cropping in photoshop to make another target but I didn't print it out. It works pretty well and I had fun doing it

 

[pharmacist]

I use this trick all the time with i1Profiler. How could I otherwise compres as much patches on a single sheet of paper, that otherwise is not possible with the standard setting. Define a virtual larger paper size and use photoshop to compress and squeeze the patches into a more convenient format/layout. My target for printable PVC-ID cards (credit card size) is also done with PS. For patch generating I do not use the i1Profiler "smart patch generator", but rather on the much more advanced ArgyllCMS targen command and convert this into cgat compatible format to be loaded and saved as a pxf-file. ArgyllCMS targen command is way superior in patch distribution/sampling than i1Profiler and I can exactly define the amount of grey steps for a given patch count, not possible with i1Profiler "smart" patch generator. It also distributes more evenly in the RGB color space than i1Profiler (-g argument) so all the sampling points will avoid each other maximally. i1Profiler has a particular way of distributing in which only at given patch counts the sampling points are evenly spread in the RGB color space and sometimes gives zero grey/neutral patches with some patch counts. A very good universal target is the built-in TC9.18 Gretag MacBeth target that is based on RGB 9x9x9 and also grey/neutral steps similar to the one of SpyderPrint Enhanced Grey target. This special patch layout cannot be generated with the standard patch generator with 918 patches.

 

[crenedecotret]

Time to report back

I scanned in the patches from your targets and also the ones I created myself with my "pkpatches" tool that uses targen in the background. The result is pretty good. And I completely agree the patch generator is nonsense in i1profiler. add one patch too many and you loose most of your grayscale.

Comparing on iccview.de. The i1studio/CM profile I had for the same paper seems to have a bit more gamut than the i1profiler and seems to dig a bit deeper in the blacks but I think that's mostly interpolated rather than from actual measurements. Both i1profiler profiles are practically identical and extend a bit more in the greens, blues and yellows/oranges.

Looking at the soft proofs on different tests images, I can visually see that the color gradations are much smoother with the I1P profile than with the i1studio but again, not quite as much shadow detail.

Using perceptual changes things a lot for the i1profiler profile. The perceptual intent in i1 profiler is vastly superior than the one in i1studio. Using the perceptual intent allows the shadow details that were a bit lacking in relative colorimetric and gives better results than the i1studio profile in either intent. Overall the colors appear much closer to the original than the i1studio and more neutral for monochrome images.

I'm keeping the i1profiler profile

The only thing I haven't done is export my measurements to ArgyllCMS but I don't bother much anymore. ArgyllCMS gives slightly more neutral profiles for relative colorimetric but I've never really liked it's perceptual intent. I feel I1profiler gives me two GOOD options I can choose from when printing my images. Monitor profiles are a different story. ArgyllCMS is way better there..

 

[pharmacist]

If you have license for i1Profiler: what you can do for more neutral profiles is in the profile settings (after you have scanned the patches):

Set neutralize grays at 50% (normally at 0 %), which will enhance neutrality significantly.